on her own was pointless with two children to care for and a team of Renamo on her spoor. He nodded.
'All right,' he agreed. He took the Tokarev pistol from his belt, cocked it, and carefully engaged the safety catch. 'Take this.'
'What's that for?' She stared at the weapon with distaste.
'I think you know what it's for.'
'The same way as Job?'
He nodded. 'It would be easier than going China's way.'
She shook her head. 'I couldn't,' she whispered. 'If there is no other way, at the end, won't you do it for me?'
'I'll try,' he said. 'But I don't think I'll have the guts. Here, take it, just in case.' Reluctantly she accepted the pistol and tucked it into her belt.
'Now kiss me,' she said.
Matatu's whistle interrupted their embrace. 'I love you,' Sean murmured in her calf.
'I'll love you she replied, 'through all eternity.'
He left her and crawled back into the piles of deadwood. At Matatu's side he sank down and peered out through the chink between two branches toward the edge of the forest.
For many minutes he saw nothing. Then there was a shadowy frit of movement among the holes of the standing hardwood, and Sean laid his right hand on the pistol grip of the AKM rifle and raised it until the butt stock touched his cheek.
The silence drew out in the languorous sunlit afternoon while they waited. No bird sang, no creature moved, until at last there was a muted bird whistle from the edge of the forest and a man shape detached itself and flitted into the opening, showing for just hi a small part of a second, then disappearing behind One Of the t ck tree stumps. As soon as it was gone another broke from the tree line a hundred meters further to the left and darted forward- This also disappeared, and almost immediately, out on the right, a one third Renamo guerrilla emerged.
'Three only,' Sean murmured. They were not going to expose more men than that, and these were good. They advanced in fleeting rushes, never two together, widely spread out and wary as old torn-leopards coming in to the bait.
'What a pity,' Sean thought. 'We are only going to get one out he mark.'
of this lot. I had hoped for a better killing to get us off t He concentrated on the advancing scouts, trying to pick the most dangerous of their enemies.
'Probably the one in the center,' he decided, and almost immethe flick of the man's diately his choice was confirmed as he saw hand from behind the stump that hid him. He was signaling one that marked of the others forward, coordinating the advance, and him as the main man, the one to take out first.
'Let him come in close,' Sean told himself. The AKM was no sniping rifle, and he didn't trust its accuracy over a hundred meters. He waited, willing the man in, watching for him over the sights of the rifle.
I The Renamo jumped up and kept coming. Sean saw that he was young, mid-twenties, with bandoliers of ammunition over both shoulders and a Rastafarian hairstyle, ribbons of camouflage rag braided into his hair. There was an Arabian cast to his features and an amber patina to his skin. He was a good-looking lad except that his left eye was a little askew and it gave his face a sly, knowing expression. ose enough. Sean Close enough to see the cast in his eye was el lined up carefully on the tree stump behind which the Renamo had disappeared. He drew a breath, exhaled half of it, and let the first joint of his right forefinger rest lightly on the trigger.
The Renamo popped up into his sights. Sean took him low, deliberately declining a clean kill. He knew what damage the 7.62IN men bullet would do as it plunged through his belly at over three thousand feet a second, and he knew from bitter experience just how unnerving it was to have one of your comrades lying in no-man's4and with his guts shot out, screaming for water and mercy. In the Scouts they called them 'warblers,' and a warbler in good voice could inhibit an attack almost as effectively as a RPD machine gun.
well-placed Sean heard the bullet hit the Renamo in the stomach, that meaty thump like a watermelon dropped on a stone floor, and he went down out of sight in the trash and debris.
Instantly there was a heavy volley of rifle fire from the edge of the forest, but it was obvious from the wild aim that they had not spotted Sean and the firing stuttered swiftly into silence. Renamo was conserving ammunition, a sure sign of their discipline and training. Second-rate African troops started firing at the beginning of a contact and kept shooting until their last round was expended.
'These lads know their business,' Sean confirmed Matatu's estimate. 'We aren't going to hold them long.' The two guerrillas were still pinned down in the middle of the cut line, and there was a low, hollow groan from out there as the first pangs of the belly wound hit the downed man.
'Sing to us, Daddy-o!' Sean encouraged him. 'Let your pals know how it hurts.' But he was studying the forest edge, trying to get some hint of the next play before it developed.
'Now they'll make a pincer move to try to outflank us,' he guessed. 'But which flank, left or right?' As if in answer he saw a tiny blur of movement in the forest. One of them was moving right.
'Alphonso,' Sean called softly. 'They are going to try the right.
Stay here. Hold the center.'
Sean crawled back until he was hidden by the high windrow of brush. Then he rose to his feet and ran doubled over, out to the right flank.
Four hundred meters out he dropped to his knees and crawled forward, finding another position facing the forest wall. He wriggled in behind a protective stump and marshaled his breathing, watching the tree fine, the AKM set on automatic fire and his thumb on the safety catch.
He had anticipated the. next move almost perfectly; the flanking movement came out of the forest only a hundred meters further to his right. A detachnVnt of eight troopers, they came all together, trying to reach the cover of the windrow in a single concerted rush, and Sean let them get halfway across the cut line.
'This is better, I should be able to get a brace out of this covey,' he told himself. He had them in enfilade; his fire would be coming in from their flank and sweeping the line. He picked out the section leader, who was running slightly ahead of the line. Sean led him by a man's length so he would run into the stream of fire, took him at knee height because the AKM rode up brutally in automatic, and held the trigger down.
The section leader dropped as though he had fallen over a trip wire, and the two men following him ran into the same burst. Sean saw the bullets hit them. One of them took it in the shoulder, and a puff of dust flew from his camouflage tunic to mark the strike.
The other was a head shot, a clean hit in the temple, and as he went down his baseball cap fluttered from his head like a maimed dove.
'Three.' Sean changed magazines, pleased with the result. He had expected one and hoped for two.
The rest of them had turned and were racing back for the forest, their attack broken completely. Sean got off another quick burst before they reached the trees and thought he saw one of them hunch his shoulders and lurch to the shot, but he kept going and disappeared.
Almost immediately there was another burst of firing back in the center, and Sean jumped up from behind his stump and ran back to help Alphonso.
As he ran, somebody opened up on him from the forest. Shot passed close to his head with that vicious whiplashing sound that made his adrenaline spurt hotly into his bloodstream. He ducked his head and ran on. He was enjoying himself, riding the curling wave of his terror.
In the center there was a sharp firefight raging. Renarno was trying to rush the open ground, and they were almost across when Sean fell flat in the brush near Alphonso and added the weight of his fire to the defense. The attack wavered and broke just short of the row of deadwood behind which they lay. The Renamo went ducking and dodging back between the tree stumps, the AK fire kicking up dust around them.
'Two!' Alphonso shouted across at Sean. 'I put two of them down.' But Matatu was tugging at Sean's arm and pointing out to the left flank. Sean was just able to get a glimpse of another group of Renamo cutting across the cut line and reaching cover on this side. The attacks on the right and center had been diversions. Now there were a dozen or so Renanio coming in behind them; within minutes they would be surrounded, pinned down helplessly.
'Alphonso, they have got in our rear,' Sean called across.
'There was nothing we could do to stop them,' Alphonso answered. 'There are too many, we are too few.'
'I am going back to hold the rear. I'll be with the women.'
'They won't attack again,' Alphonso told him flatly. 'Now that they have us surrounded they will wait for the hen shaw to come.' A burst of automatic fire raked the pile of deadwood, and they ducked instinctively.
'They are only shooting to hold us,' Alphonso called. 11 ey Th don't have to risk losing more men.'
'How long until the helicopter arrives? Sean wanted his own estimate confirmed.
'Not more than an hour,' Alphonso told him with finality.
'Then it will all be over very quickly.'
Alphonso was, right Against
